Civil Eats, in an article published Wednesday, quoted FDA spokeswoman Lauren Sucher as saying the agency is "considering assignments" for the current fiscal year to "measure glyphosate in soybeans, corn, milk, and eggs, among other potential foods."
By testing for residues of the chemical, the FDA may answer longstanding concerns about whether it ends up in the food supply. If detected in large amounts, the industry would likely see an increased demand for stricter regulations.
Among the groups that welcomed the FDA announcement was the Center for Biological Diversity, which noted in a statement that glyphosate has been named as a leading cause of massive declines in monarch butterflies.
Nathan Donley, a scientist with the group, said it was "shocking" it took the FDA so long to agree to testing. He added that he's "glad it's finally going to happen."
"More and more scientists are raising concerns about the effects of glyphosate on human health and the environment," said Donley, adding that FDA data is "badly needed to facilitate long-overdue conversations about how much of this chemical we should tolerate in our food."
Gary Ruskin, co-director of U.S. Right to Know, agreed testing is a "good first step," but said it must be thorough and widespread. He encouraged the U.S. Department of Agriculture to join the effort.
The FDA said a main reason it did not test for the herbicide in the past was because the available methods were "very cost- and labor-intensive to implement in FDA field labs," according to a statement to Agri-Pulse. New "streamlined methods" have made testing for glyphosate cheaper, the FDA said.
"If FDA does move forward with additional testing in a scientifically rigorous manner, we are confident it will reaffirm the long-standing safety profile of this vital tool used safely and effectively by farmers, landowners and homeowners around the world," Monsanto said in a statement.
Monsanto's patent on the herbicide expired in 2000, but the St. Louis-based company continues to reap about $5 billion annually in sales from glyphosate, Civil Eats reported.
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Pope Francis receives a cross made by an inmate during his visit to the CeReSo n. 3 penitentiary in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Wednesday. Photo by Gabriel Buoys/Pool/via Reuters
ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE -- Thrusting himself into the heated American presidential campaign, Pope Francis declared Thursday that Donald Trump is "not Christian" if he wants to address illegal immigration only by building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump fired back ferociously, saying it was "disgraceful" for a religious leader to question a person's faith.
The rare back-and-forth between pontiff and presidential candidate was the latest astonishing development in an American election already roiled by Trump's free-wheeling rhetoric and controversial policy proposals, particularly on immigration. It also underscored the popular pope's willingness to needle U.S. politicians on hot-button issues.
Francis' comments came hours after he concluded a visit to Mexico, where he prayed at the border for people who died trying to reach the U.S. While speaking to reporters on the papal plane, he was asked what he thought of Trump's campaign pledge to build a wall along the entire length of the border and expel millions of people in the U.S. illegally.
"A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian," he said. While Francis said he would "give the benefit of the doubt" because he had not heard Trump's border plans independently, he added, "I say only that this man is not a Christian if he has said things like that."
Trump, a Presbyterian and the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, responded within minutes.
"For a religious leader to question a person's faith is disgraceful," he said at a campaign stop in South Carolina, which holds a key primary on Saturday. "I am proud to be a Christian, and as president I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened."
Trump also raised the prospect of the Islamic State extremist group attacking the Vatican, saying that if that happened, "the pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president because this would not have happened."
The billionaire businessman said later Thursday that he was "totally respectful" of the pope but stood by his initial response.
Francis, the first pope from Latin America, has been a vocal proponent of compassionate immigration policies. In an address to Congress during his visit to Washington last year, he urged lawmakers to respond to immigrants "in a way which is always humane, just and fraternal."
He also irked Republicans on the same trip with his forceful call for international action to address climate change. His comments prompted some GOP presidential candidates to suggest the pontiff stay out of politics.
Immigration is among the most contentious issues in American politics. Republicans have moved toward hardline positions that emphasize law enforcement and border security, blocking comprehensive legislation in 2013 that would have included a path to citizenship for many of the 11 million people in the U.S. illegally.
Hispanics, an increasingly large voting bloc in U.S. presidential elections, have flocked to Democrats in recent years. President Barack Obama won more than 70 percent in the 2012 election, leading some Republican leaders to conclude that the party could win the White House back only if it increased its appeal to the fast-growing group.
However, the current GOP presidential primary has been dominated by increasingly tough rhetoric on immigration, with Trump at the forefront. He's insisted that Mexico would pay for his proposed border wall and has said some Mexicans entering the U.S. illegally are murderers and rapists.
While Trump's rhetoric has been among the most inflammatory, some of his rivals have staked out similar enforcement positions. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson are among those who have explicitly called for construction of a wall.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, one of the few GOP candidates proposing a path to legal status for people already in the U.S. illegally, said Thursday that he supports "walls and fencing where it's appropriate." Bush said that while he gets his guidance "as a Catholic" from the pope, he doesn't take his cues from Francis on "economic or environmental policy."
Marco Rubio, another Catholic seeking the GOP nomination, said that Vatican City has a right to control its borders and so does the United States.
Rubio said he has "tremendous respect and admiration" for the pope, but he added, "There's no nation on Earth that's more compassionate on immigration than we are."
Cruz said he was steering clear of the dispute. "That's between Donald and the pope," he said. "I'm not going to get in the middle of them."
It's unclear what impact, if any, the pope's rhetoric will have on the Republican primary. An October poll conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that most Americans had no strong opinion on the pope's approach to immigration issues, though he was overall viewed favorably.
Even before Thursday's exchange, Trump had been critical of Francis' visit to Mexico. He said last week that the pope's plans to pray at the border showed he was a political figure being exploited by the Mexican government.
Francis glossed over Trump's assertion that he was a pawn of Mexico, telling reporters on his plane that he would "leave that up to your judgment." But he seemed pleased to hear the pope had called him a "political" figure, noting that Aristotle had described the human being as a "political animal."
Video by PBS NewsHour
Here is the full question and answer aboard the papal plane:
Q: Good evening Your Holiness. Today you spoke eloquently about the problems of migrants. On the other side of the frontier there's a very tough electoral campaign going on. One of the Republican candidates for the White House, Donald Trump, in a recent interview, said you are a "political man" and that maybe you are a pawn of the Mexican government as far as immigration policy is concerned. He has said that if elected, he would build a 2,500-kilometer long wall along the border. He wants to deport 11 million illegal immigrants, thus separating families, etc. I would like to ask you first off what do you think of these accusations against you, and if an American Catholic can vote for someone like this.
A: Thank God he said I was a politician because Aristotle defined the human person as "animal politicus." So at least I am a human person. As to whether I am a pawn, well, maybe, I don't know. I'll leave that up to your judgment and that of the people. And then, a person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the gospel. As far as what you said about whether I would advise to vote or not to vote, I am not going to get involved in that. I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and in this I give the benefit of the doubt.
Associated Press writers Nicole Winfield and Julie Pace wrote this report. Pace reported from Greenville, South Carolina. AP writers Jill Colvin in Kiawah Island, South Carolina, and Tom Beaumont in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.
Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, who was found dead Saturday morning, served on the Supreme Court for almost 30 years.
The longest-serving member of the current court, Scalia was first sworn in on Sept. 26, 1986, after being nominated by President Ronald Reagan and unanimously confirmed by the Senate.
Watch the moment Scalia's Supreme Court career began above.
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Republicans have spent nearly six years promising to repeal Obamacare and, for most of that time, they have refused to acknowledge what that would mean for the millions who would lose their health insurance.
On Saturday afternoon in Iowa, for at least a few minutes, one Republican couldn't get away with it.
It happened at a Ted Cruz campaign event in Hubbard, a small town smack in the middle of the state. According to reports in The New York Times, The Washington Post and Politico, Cruz fielded a question from Mike Valde, a Democratic voter who had come to the event with a story to tell and a simple question to ask.
The story was about his brother-in-law, a barber named Mark. As Valde told it, Mark was a small business owner who worked so hard that he didn't even take paid days off. But Mark was unable to afford health insurance until the Affordable Care Act became law. When it did, Mark bought insurance and then, when he started feeling ill, saw a physician -- who promptly diagnosed him with cancer with no hope for recovery. He died last year.
"He had never been to a doctor for years," Valde said, reportedly on the verge of tears. "Multiple tumors behind his heart, his liver, his pancreas. And they said, ‘We're sorry, sir, there's nothing we can do for you.'"
The room fell silent, according to the Times' account, and then Valde, who later told reporters that he was a Hillary Clinton supporter, posed his question: "Mark never had health care until Obamacare. What are you going to replace it with?"
Cruz offered Valde his condolences before launching into the same basic argument that Republicans always make. "Under Obamacare," Cruz said, "millions of Americans have lost their jobs. Millions of Americans have lost their doctors, have seen their premiums skyrocket." He pointed out that Obama had promised families would see average savings of $2500 from health care reform, and joked that he'd gladly encourage anybody who'd actually reaped such savings to vote for Clinton -- a quip that drew laughter from the audience.
Valde, apparently less amused, kept at it. "My question is, what are you going to replace it with?" he said. Cruz responded that he'd get there, but first he wanted to talk some more about the "millions of stories on the other side" -- people who'd had to give up their old plans and, as a result, ended up with higher premiums or co-pays, narrow networks of providers or some combination thereof.
Eventually Cruz suggested that if Valde's brother-in-law couldn't afford health insurance premiums previously, it was probably because government regulation had driven up the price -- and that the best solution, at this point, was to wipe the slate clean and build a new health care system, one in which people could purchase coverage across state lines.
It mirrored the answer Cruz had given just two days before, when Fox News host Bret Baier posed a similar question during Thursday's presidential debate in Des Moines. And Cruz's description of Obamacare's effects hadn't gotten any less misleading in the interim.
It's true that President Barack Obama's signature health care law rewrote the rules for how insurance companies sell policies directly to individuals -- requiring that all policies include comprehensive benefits, for example, and prohibiting carriers from charging higher premiums or denying coverage outright to people who pose greater medical risks. And it's true that, because of those changes, insurers cancelled some existing policies.
But early reports suggesting as many 5 million people lost their old policies appear to have been exaggerated. Subsequent studies estimated that the actual number was less than half of that.
Meanwhile, those people were able to get new coverage through the law's marketplaces. And the best available research suggests that the majority ended up paying less money, not more, for their policies, while enjoying guarantees of coverage nobody had previously.
Overall, fewer and fewer Americans are reporting difficulty with medical bills and the proportion of Americans without coverage has fallen to historic lows. In Iowa specifically, the proportion of residents without health insurance fell by nearly half from 2013 to 2015, according to Gallup.
As for the claim that the Affordable Care Act has either destroyed jobs or turned millions of full-time positions into part-time ones, it appears to be just plain wrong. Anecdotal stories of employers capping hours got a lot of attention in 2014 and 2015, but experts have now had time to examine the data and they see no signs of a significant trend towards part-time work. (Also of note: the private sector has created jobs in every month since the Affordable Care Act became law.) Based on conversations with several well-respected economists, the website Politifact recently rated this favorite Republican argument "Pants on Fire."
Allowing people to buy insurance across state lines, as Cruz proposed, is something conservatives have long favored. It would allow insurers to start acting like credit card companies, relocating to whatever states have the least onerous regulations and selling all policies from them.
Like other efforts to gut existing rules on how insurers operate, it'd allow the industry to sell cheap, skimpy policies that might appeal to some healthy people, but would offer nothing to people need comprehensive coverage. In short, it's a way of allowing insurers to act like they did before health care reform -- not a way to make sure millions get insurance.
There's a reason Cruz didn't have a better answer for Valde, and it's the same reason Republicans never have a satisfying response to this question.
The Affordable Care Act has its pluses and minuses, with plenty of people legitimately aggrieved about what it's done or how it's worked out for them -- and plenty more opposed for philosophical reasons. But any alternative that provides similar (or better) access to health care protection from medical bills is bound to require a similar combination of regulation and government spending. Republicans oppose such measures on principle -- which is why, when they talk about Obamacare, they exaggerate the downsides, ignore the upsides, and pretend they have better alternatives.
While Valde never got a real answer from Cruz, he had a chance to ask another candidate his question later in the evening. He showed up at a rally for Clinton in Cedar Rapids and was called onstage while she was speaking. Clinton noted that millions would lose their insurance if Cruz and the other Republicans have their way. "That's fine with them," she said. "That's not fine with me."
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Moody's Investors Service downgraded Sports Authority two steps on its ratings scale Wednesday after it failed to make a $21 million debt payment due January 15.
Its rating went from Caa1 to Caa3. Plus, Moody's has a negative outlook reflecting "a high probability of default." Read More»
President Barack Obama on Wednesday called the ongoing municipal water crisis in Flint, Michigan, "inexplicable and inexcusable" and said government "broke down" in its responsibility to protect public health.
Obama, during an interview in Detroit with CBS set to air later this week, said he understands why Flint residents are outraged. The city's water supply has been contaminated with lead and other pollutants for months after a state-approved plan to save money by switching to corrosive Flint River water from the Detroit municipal system.
Obama, in an interview set to air on CBS Sunday Morning, told host Lee Cowan that government in Michigan "broke down" in its responsibility to protect public health and safety.
"What is inexplicable and inexcusable is once people figured out that there was a problem there, and that there was lead in the water, the notion that immediately families weren't notified, things weren't shut down," Obama said. "That shouldn't happen anywhere."
Obama was in Detroit to deliver a speech at the United Auto Workers-General Motors Center. He also commented on the crisis in Flint during the address.
"I know that if I was a parent up there, I would be beside myself that my kid's health could be at risk," he said.
Flint has been reeling from a months-long public health emergency that began in October, when residents started to complain about brown water coming out of taps that caused rashes. Local government largely ignored complaints from the predominantly black city. Officials finally acknowledged high lead levels in the water late last year after a local doctor obtained records showing elevated lead in blood tests for city children.
Gov. Rick Snyder (R) acknowledged during his State of the State address on Tuesday that the state made errors in handling the crisis.
"I'm sorry, and I will fix it," Snyder said, addressing Flint residents. "You did not create this crisis, and you do not deserve this."
Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both lambasted Snyder for his handling of the crisis during last weekend's presidential debate.
In an interview with CBS on Wednesday, Snyder said people shouldn't consider the water safe "until it's been throughly tested" and urged residents to continue to use bottled and filtered water. He didn't say how much lead was in the water, but noted that "probably over 100 kids" have high levels in their blood.
Eric Schultz, White House principal deputy press secretary, told The Washington Post that Obama is "deeply engaged" with the disaster response. Schultz declined to say whether the White House thinks Snyder should resign over the crisis, noting the government "should be focused on the actual problem."
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Many people dream of owning a business but would prefer not to have to put all the parts together. Franchising is a good option for them because they buy into an existing business that has already established all the...
